Poem Written in Nova Scotia

I am not exactly thrilled with this poem. It has its moments, but it's not my best. But here it is nonetheless.




A Year Ago

By Heidi Nye

A year ago I’d planned to leave my So Cal job,
live in my Nova Scotia cabin six months a year,
travel about the U.S. the other six,
sleep in the back of my truck,
save thousands in rent and utilities,
camp and hike and swim,
explore the back roads and little towns of America,
then head north for another six months,
repeat this cycle again and again,
stopping only for true love or death.
I’d make a living as I had in the summers of ‘05 and ‘06,
conducting interviews via cell phone,
using Internet connections and desk space in public libraries
to research, write, and e-mail articles
for trade journals, lifestyle magazines, and clients I‘d picked up along the way.

Perhaps I’d take an odd job here and there:
a waitress gig in Salt Lake,
a berry-picker season in eastern Washington,
a night-watchman month in Tennessee.

Everywhere I’d go, strangers would give me hugs,
keep me in their prayers,
invite me over for coffee or dinner,
let me use their backyards to set up camp
or their canoes for evening paddles on the lake.



Then, eight months ago, I was given a choice: dialysis or die.
I knew this meant the end of my wandering-Taoist dream,
hooked up as I would be 10 ½ hours in 24
to a machine that chugs and glugs, slurps and burps, belches and farts,
destroying the peace of my bedroom,
my sanctuary turned into a warehouse,
boxes squirreled under the bed, behind the file cabinet,
walls of cardboard halfway to the ceiling.

Thirty boxes every two weeks, I was told.
I’d have to rent a U-Haul and a driver
to tag behind me.
Surely not what I‘d had in mind.

I’d envisioned respite from the heaviness of this planet,
this dense realm in which I’ve been placed.
A lighter, freer way of being.
Instead, I’m now more encumbered than I ever imagined possible.

But when I’m quiet and apprehend the force that emanates
from every living thing (rocks, dead wood, and sunshine included),
I recall flight and weightlessness,
a place where bodies of light merge with one another,
each vibrating molecule of one field passing through the vibrating molecules of the other,
like scrambled transporter beams on the Starship Enterprise,
but in a good way.

The demands of surgical masks, insertion sites, sterile bandages,
aseptic techniques, tubing, exit-site care, blood-sugar tests,
meds, patient record-keeping, clinic visits,
tape, tape, and ever more tape too often cloud my mood,
and I make the mistake of thinking this is all there is,
all there will ever be.

It’s then I weep, shaking my fist toward heaven,
where I suspect Archangel Michael is hanging out,
doing his damnedest to avoid me.
The toughest of tough guys, he can take anything I can dish out.

“I am so tired of all this!” I rail at him.
“I’ve failed so miserably at my assignment.
I’m so very sorry.
So very, very sorry.
Please let me come home.”

He stands tall and resilient as ever, too far away for me to see.
But his message is clear enough: There’s no back-out clause in my contract.
And I must live up to his words to me, now almost a decade old:
“The strength that you see within me
is there inside of you.”


Aug. 21, 2009
Wrights Lake, Nova Scotia